In certain surgical procedures, a bipolar electrosurgical device may have electrodes with relatively large surface areas which are intended to treat relatively large areas of tissue to expedite treatment thereof. However, also as part of the same surgical procedure, it may be desirable to treat much smaller areas of tissue without treating tissue adjacent to the desired treatment area. In this situation, another bipolar electrosurgical device with smaller electrodes may be used to focus treatment in the smaller treatment area.
In addition, during the foregoing surgical procedure, it may be desirable to have multiple bipolar devices with each providing different spacing between the electrodes to change the treatment of the tissue and/or size of the footprint of the electrodes. For example, a device with the electrodes spaced further apart may provide a deeper depth of tissue treatment and have a larger electrode footprint than a device with the same size electrodes positioned closer together, which may result in a more shallow tissue treatment and a smaller electrode footprint which can better access particularly confined spaces.
What is needed is a bipolar electrosurgical device which may be used to treat relatively large areas of tissue, as well as electrodes which may be effectively decreased in size to focus tissue treatment on a particularly small tissue treatment site/area without treating tissue adjacent to the site area. What is also needed is a bipolar device which can change the relative spacing between the electrodes so the depth of tissue treatment and/or size of the footprint of the electrodes.